Newsletter: May 2007

Lots of literary prize news for you this month (mind you, is there a month that goes by without prize news?). First up, the winner of the National Short Story Prize was announced recently, complete with national media attention on Radio 4. Irish writer Julian Gough scooped the £15,000 first prize with his story 'The Orphan and the Mob', and David Almond was runner-up. You can read more about the prize and the winners, on the Story website.

Prizes for non-fiction writing never seem to garner quite as much public attention as those for fiction and poetry. Nonetheless, if you enjoy histories and biographies and need some ideas, they can be a good place to start. Last month Peter Hennessy's book Having It So Good: Britain in the Fifties was awarded the Orwell Prize for political writing. The book examines the rise of Harold Macmillan in the years following Britain's involvement in World War Two. Read more about the prize.

If you've never heard of the Orwell Prize, you'll probably have heard about the Booker. But what about the Man Booker International Prize? This is awarded every two years to, so the website says, 'a living author who has published fiction either originally in English, or generally available in translation in the English language.' Which is fairly broad. The fifteen writers from around the world in contention for the 2007 prize were named at a press conference in Toronto last month. They are: Chinua Achebe, Margaret Atwood, John Banville, Peter Carey, Don DeLillo, Carlos Fuentes, Doris Lessing, Ian McEwan, Harry Mulisch, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje, Amos Oz, Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie, and Michel Tournier. The prize is worth £60,000 to the winner. Just don't ask whether any of those names really need it.

One prize which definitely has the media coverage all sewn up is the Orange Prize for Fiction (mm, must be somethng to do with having a high profile communications sponsor). When even the longlists of an award make the news, you know it's a big one. We've got to shortlist stage with the Orange now: in contention for the main prize are Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Arlington Park by Rachel Cusk, The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo, The Observations by Jane Harris, and Digging to America by Anne Tyler. Even more interesting perhaps (given the impact a prestigious prize can have on a writer's career) are the trio of books competing for the Orange Prize for new writers: Poppy Shakespeare by Clare Allan, The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly, and Bitter Sweets by Roopa Farooki. Unfortunately we now have to wait until 6th June to find out who wins. I suppose that allows time for another media / bookselling frenzy to build up...

Just a couple of other things to alert you to. The first is that the latest in our ongoing series of EnCompass Author Interviews has recently gone up on site. In case you missed it, the interview with acclaimed and sometimes controversial children's writer Melvin Burgess is well worth a read. Also, my Book of the Month recommendation for May is a collection of short stories by Alice Munro, titled (intriguingly, if a little uncatchily) Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. Even if you think you don't like short stories, have a look at my review and see if it might persuade you...

Best wishes,

Susan Tranter

Reader in Residence

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